by Demosthenes
[We, Lysimachus of Alopece, Demeas of Sunium, Chares of Thoricus, Philemon of Sphetta, Moschus of Paeania, know that at the date when the indictment was presented to the Council charging Aristarchus, the son of Moschus, with the murder of Nicodemus, Meidias, who is now being tried at the suit of Demosthenes, for whom we appear, came before the Council and stated that Aristarchus, and no one else, was the murderer of Nicodemus, and he advised the Council to go to the house of Aristarchus and arrest him. This he said to the Council, having dined on the previous day with Aristarchus in our company. We also know that Meidias, when he came from the Council after making this statement, again entered the house of Aristarchus and shook hands with him and, invoking destruction on his own head, swore that he had said nothing in his disparagement before the Council, and he asked Aristarchus to reconcile Demosthenes to him.]” [122]
Can anything go beyond that? Has there ever been, or could there ever be, baseness to compare with this of Meidias? He felt justified in informing against that unfortunate man, who had done him no wrong — I waive the fact that he was his friend — and at the same time he was begging him to bring about a reconciliation between himself and me; and not content with this, he spent money on an iniquitous attempt to procure my banishment as well as that of Aristarchus. [123]
Yet this habit of his, Athenians, this scheme of involving in yet greater calamities all who stand up against him in just defence, is not something that might well rouse indignation and resentment in me, but that the rest of you should overlook. Far from it. All citizens alike should be stirred to anger, when they reflect and observe that it is exactly the poorest and weakest of you that run the greatest risk of being thus wantonly wronged, while it is the rich blackguards that find it easiest to oppress others and escape punishment, and even to hire agents to put obstacles in the path of justice. [124] Such conduct must not be overlooked. It must not be supposed that the man who by intimidation tries to debar any citizen from obtaining reparation for his wrongs is doing less than robbing us of our liberties and of our right of free speech. Perhaps I and one or two others may have managed to repel a false and calamitous charge and so have escaped destruction; but what will the vast majority of you do, if you do not by a public example make it a dangerous game for anyone to abuse his wealth for such a purpose? [125] When the accused man has rendered an account of his actions and has stood his trial on the charges brought against him, then he may retaliate upon unjust assailants; but even then he must not try to spirit away some witness of his ill deeds, nor to escape a trial by bringing false charges; he must not count it a grievance to submit to justice, but must avoid all outrageous conduct from the first. [126]
Men of Athens, you have now heard how many outrages I endured, both in my own person and in the performance of my public service, and how many escapes I have had from plots and ill-treatment of every kind. Yet I have omitted much, for it was not easy perhaps to mention everything. But the case is this. By none of his acts was I alone wronged, but in the wrongs inflicted on the chorus my whole tribe, the tenth part of the citizens, shared; by his plots and attacks against me he wronged the laws, to which each of you looks for protection;lastly by all these acts he wronged the god to whose service I had been dedicated and that divine and awful power beyond our ken — the power of Holiness. [127] Those who would exact from him an adequate punishment for his misdeeds must not let their indignation be checked by the reflection that I alone am concerned, but must base the penalty on the ground that all alike are victims of the same wrong — the laws, the gods, the city of Athens; and they must look upon those who support him and are marshalled in his defence as something more than mere advocates, as men who set the seal of their approval to his acts. [128]
Now if, men of Athens, Meidias had in other respects behaved with decency and moderation, if he had never injured any other citizen, but had confined his brutality and violence to me, I might, in the first place, consider this a piece of my own bad luck, and, in the second place, I should be afraid lest, by pointing to the moderation and humanity of the rest of his life, he might so evade punishment for his outrage on me. [129] But as it is, the wrongs that he has done to many of you are so many and so great that I am relieved of this apprehension; my fear is now, on the contrary, that when you hear of the terrible wrongs that others have suffered at his hands, some such argument as this may occur to you. “What have you to complain of? Have you suffered more than each of his other victims?” Now all that he has done, I could not relate to you, nor would you have the patience to listen, even if I were allowed for the rest of my speech all the time assigned to both of us: all my time and all his in addition would not suffice. I will confine myself to the most important and clearest examples. [130] Or rather, this is what I propose to do. I will read you all my memoranda, just as I wrote them out for my own use. I will take first whatever incident you would like to hear first; next your second choice, and so on, as long as you care to listen. There is no lack of variety; plenty of examples of assault, of kinsmen swindled, and of sacrilege. There is not a single passage where you will not find that he has committed many crimes worthy of death.” Memoranda of the Crimes of Meidias “ [131]
That, gentlemen of the jury, is how he has treated everyone that comes across his path. I have omitted other instances, for no one could compress into a single narrative the violent acts that he has spent a lifetime in committing. But it is worth while noticing to what a height of audacity he has advanced in consequence of his never having been punished for any of these acts. He seems to have thought that no act that one man can commit against an individual was brilliant or dashing enough or worth risking his life for, and unless he could affront a whole tribe or the Council or some class of citizens and harass vast multitudes of you at once, he felt that life was really not worth living. [132] And as to other instances, innumerable as they are, I say nothing, but as regards the cavalry which was dispatched to Argura, and of which he was one, you all know of course how he harangued you on his return from Chalcis, blaming the troop and saying that its dispatch was a scandal to the city. In connection with that, you remember too the abuse that he heaped on Cratinus, who is, I understand, going to support him in the present case. Now if he provoked such serious but groundless quarrels with so many citizens at once, what degree of wickedness and recklessness may we expect from him now? [133] [But I should like to ask you, Meidias, which was the greater scandal to the city — the men who crossed to Chalcis in due order, and with the equipment proper to those who were to take the field against the enemy and to join forces with our allies, or you, who, when lots were drawn for the expedition, prayed that you might draw a blank, who never donned your cuirass, who rode on a saddle with silver trappings, imported from Euboea, taking with you your shawls and goblets and wine-jars, which were confiscated by the customs? We of the infantry learned this by report, for we had not crossed at the same point as the cavalry. [134] And then, because Archetion or someone chaffed you on the subject, must you annoy them all?] If you did what your fellow-troopers say you did, Meidias, and what you complain of them for saying, then you deserved their reproaches, because you were bringing harm and disgrace both on them and on these jurymen here and on all the city. But if you did not do it and it was all a fabrication, and if the rest of the soldiers, instead of reproving the slanderers, chuckled over you, it only shows that from your general manner of life they thought that such a story exactly fitted you. It was yourself, then, that you ought to have kept more under control, instead of accusing the others. [135] But you threaten all, you bully all. You insist that everyone else shall consult your wishes; you do not your self consult how to avoid annoying others. Yes, and what seems to me the most damning proof of your audacity is this: you come forward, you shameless ruffian, and include all these men in one sweeping accusation. Anyone else would have shuddered at the thought of doing such a thing. [136]
I observe, gentlemen, that in all other trials the defendants are charged with one or two
offences only, but they can rely on any number of appeals, such as these: “Does anyone in court know me to be capable of this? Who among you has ever seen me commit these offences? No one. The plaintiffs are libelling me out of spite. I am the victim of false testimony,” and so on. But with Meidias the case is just the reverse; [137] for I suppose you all know his way of life, his arrogance and his superciliousness, and I even suspect that some have long marvelled at things which they know themselves, but have not heard from my lips today. But I note that many of his victims are reluctant to disclose in evidence all that they have suffered, because they realize his violence and his persistence and the extent of those resources which make him so powerful and so dreaded, despicable though he is. [138] For a man whose wickedness and violence are supported by power and wealth is fortified against any sudden attack. So this fellow, if he were deprived of his property, would perhaps discontinue his outrages, or if not, he will be of less account in your courts than the most insignificant criminal; for then he will rail and bluster to deaf ears, and for any act of gross violence he will pay the penalty like the rest of us. [139] But now, I believe, his champions are Polyeuctus and Timocrates and the ragamuffin Euctemon. Such are the mercenaries that he keeps about him; and there are others besides, an organized gang of witnesses, who do not openly force themselves upon you, but readily give a silent nod of assent to his lies. [I do not of course imagine that they make anything out of him, but there are some people, men of Athens, who are strangely prone to abase themselves towards the wealthy, to attend upon them, and to give witness in their favour.] [140] All this, I expect, is alarming for the rest of you as individuals, depending each upon his own resources; and that is why you band yourselves together, so that when you find yourselves individually inferior to others, whether in wealth or in friends or in any other respect, you may together prove stronger than any one of your enemies and so check his insolence. [141]
Now, some such ready plea as this will be submitted to you: “Why did not So-and-so, who suffered this or that at my hands, try to obtain redress from me? Or why did not So-and-so?” — naming perhaps another of his victims. But I expect you all know the stock excuses for shirking the duty of self-defence — want of leisure, a distaste for affairs, inability to speak, lack of means, and a thousand such reasons. [142] I do not, however, think that Meidias has any right to use such language now; his duty is to prove that he has not done what I have accused him of doing, and if he cannot, then he deserves death all the more. For if he is so powerful that he can act like this and yet prevent you individually from obtaining satisfaction from him, you ought all of you, in common and on behalf of all, now that he is in your grasp, to punish him as the common enemy of the State. [143]
History tells us that Alcibiades lived at Athens in the good old days of her prosperity, and I want you to consider what great public services stand to his credit and how your ancestors dealt with him when he thought fit to behave like a ruffian and a bully. And assuredly it is not from any desire to compare Meidias with Alcibiades that I mention this story. I am not so foolish or infatuated. My object, men of Athens, is that you may know and feel that there is not, and never will be, anything — not birth, not wealth, not power — that you, the great mass of citizens, ought to tolerate, if it is coupled with insolence. [144] For Alcibiades, Athenians, was on his father’s side one of the Alcmaeonidae, who are said to have been banished by the tyrants because they belonged to the democratic faction, and who, with money borrowed from Delphi, liberated our city, expelling the sons of Peisistratus, and on his mother’s side he claimed descent from Hipponicus and that famous house to which the people are indebted for many eminent services. [145] But these were not his only claims, for he had also taken arms in the cause of democracy, twice in Samos and a third time in Athens itself, displaying his patriotism, not by gifts of money or by speeches, but by personal service. He had also to his credit for the Olympian chariot-race and victories there, and we are told that he was regarded as the best general and the ablest speaker of the day. [146] But yet your ancestors, for all these services, would not allow him to insult them. They made him a fugitive and an outlaw, and in the day of Lacedaemonian power they endured the fortification of Decelea, the capture of their fleet, and every kind of loss, because they deemed any involuntary suffering more honorable than a voluntary submission to the tyranny of insolence. [147] Yet what was his insolence compared with what has been proved of Meidias today? He boxed the ears of Taureas, when the latter was chorus-master. Granted; but it was as chorus-master to chorus-master that he did it, and he did not transgress the present law, for it had not yet been made. Another story is that he imprisoned the painter Agatharchus. Yes, but he had caught him in an act of trespass, or so we are told; so that it is unfair to blame him for that. He was one of the mutilators of the Hermae. All acts of sacrilege, I suppose, ought to excite the same indignation, but is not complete destruction of sacred things just as sacrilegious as their mutilation? Well, that is what Meidias has been convicted of. [148] To contrast the two men, let us ask who Meidias is and to whom he displayed his qualities. Do not then imagine that for you, gentlemen, being the descendants of such ancestors, it would be in accordance with justice or piety, to say nothing of honor, if, when you have caught a rascally, violent bully, a mere nobody and son of nobody, you should pronounce him deserving of pardon or pity or favour of any kind. For why should you? Because of his services as general? But not even as a private soldier, much less as a leader of others, is he worth anything at all. For his speeches then? In his public speeches he never yet said a good word of anyone, and he speaks ill of everyone in private. [149] For the sake of his family perhaps? And who of you does not know the mysterious story of his birth — quite like a melodrama? He was the sport of two opposing circumstances. The real mother who bore him was the most sensible of mortals; his reputed mother who adopted him was the silliest woman in the world. Do you ask why? The one sold him as soon as he was born; the other purchased him, when she might have got a better bargain at the same figure. [150] And yet, though he has thus become the possessor of privileges to which he has no claim, and has found a fatherland which is reputed to be of all states the most firmly based upon its laws, he seems utterly unable to submit to those laws or abide by them. His true, native barbarism and hatred of religion drive him on by force and betray the fact that he treats his present rights as if they were not his own — as indeed they are not. [151]
Such, then, being the events that make up the life of this shameless blackguard, some of his associates came to me, gentlemen of the jury, urging me to retire and drop this action; but finding me unmoved, they did not venture to assert that he was innocent of all these crimes and would not deserve the severest penalty for his deeds. They took this line of argument. “He has already been convicted and condemned; what fine do you expect the court to impose on him? Do you not see that he is a rich man and will talk about the equipment of war-galleys and other public services? Then take care that he does not beg himself off by such pleas, and make you his laughingstock, when he pays the State a far less sum than he now offers you.” [152] For myself, in the first place, I do not charge you with anything dishonorable, nor do I suppose that you will lay on him a lighter punishment than will effectually check his insolence; and that means, for choice, death, or failing that, at least the confiscation of all his property. In the next place, my own opinion about his trierarchies and public services and pleas of that sort is this. [153] If, men of Athens, public service consists in saying to you at all the meetings of the Assembly and on every possible occasion, “We are the men who perform the public services; we are those who advance your tax-money; we are the capitalists” — if that is all it means, then I confess that Meidias has shown himself the most distinguished citizen of Athens; for he bores us at every Assembly by these tasteless and tactless boasts. [154] But if you want to find out how he really performs his services, I will tell you; and please mark with what fairness I shall t
est him, for I will compare him with myself. This man, Athenians, who is about fifty years old or only a trifle less, has not performed more public services than I, who am only two and thirty. Moreover I, as soon as I had reached man’s estate, undertook the trierarchy in the days when only two shared the duty, and when we paid all the expenses from our own purses and provided the crews ourselves. [155] Meidias, when he was of my present age, had not yet begun to perform services; he has only put his hand to the task since you made twelve hundred citizens joint contributors, from whom such men as Meidias exact a talent and then contract for the equipment of the war-galley at the same price. After this the State provides the crews and furnishes the tackle; so that some of them succeed in really spending nothing at all and by pretending to have performed one public service enjoy exemption from the rest. [156] Well, is there anything else? He has once equipped a tragic chorus; I have furnished a band of male flute-players; and everyone knows that the latter involves much greater expense than the former. Moreover my service is voluntary; his was only undertaken after a challenge to exchange property. Therefore no one could justly allow him any credit for it. What else? I have feasted my tribe and equipped a chorus for the Panathenaea; he has done neither. [157] I was chairman of one of the tax-syndicates for ten years, contributing the same share as Phormio, Lysitheides, Callaeschrus, and the richest citizens, not from my actual property, of which my guardians had robbed me, but from the estimated wealth which my father had left and which I was entitled to inherit when I had passed the scrutiny for citizenship. That is how I have borne myself towards you; but how has Meidias? To this day he has never been chairman of a syndicate, though no one has ever robbed him of any part of his inheritance and he has received from his father a large property. [158] In what, then, consist his splendor, his public services and his lordly expenditure? I cannot for the life of me see, unless one fixes one’s attention on these facts. He has built at Eleusis a mansion huge enough to overshadow his neighbors; he drives his wife to the Mysteries, or anywhere else that he wishes, with a pair of greys from Sicyon; he swaggers about the market-place with three or four henchmen in attendance, describing beakers and drinking-horns and cups loud enough for the passers-by to hear. [159] I do not see how the mass of Athenians are benefited by all the wealth that Meidias retains for private luxury and superfluous display; I do see that his insolence, fostered by his wealth, affects many of us ordinary folk. You ought not to show respect and admiration for such things on every occasion, nor judge a man’s public spirit by such tests as these — whether he builds himself a splendid house or keeps many maid-servants or handsome furniture, but whether his splendor and public spirit are displayed in those things in which the majority of you can share. There you will find Meidias absolutely wanting. [160]